Sometimes yoga happens when you don't expect it

Tel Aviv, Israel — Today, I went off the mat.

I didn't know it would happen. It just sort of ... did.

I was outside, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea, breathing cool sea air. It was even sunset. I started out doing my first kung fu form, 15 times. I am trying to get it just right. Then I did each of my karate forms. I felt physically worked, but I wasn't quite satisfied.

So I began doing Sun Salutations: 5 "A" Sun Salutes, 5 "B" Sun Salutes. I had no mat with me, as I did not bring one on this trip because I already had enough to schlep with me on the airplane. But I was outside, the weather was lovely, the sun had set, and I felt like doing a little yoga. The surface was covered with that sort of outdoor carpet junk that is basically a way not to scuff your toes on the concrete. No padding underneath it, no added comfort. I felt like doing some yoga, though, and I was on a nonslip surface.

I don't know that I ever felt so relaxed. No one else was outside: It is winter in Israel. I had the entire outdoor plaza to myself. So I flowed my way through my Sun Salutes, then moved through some postures that seemed to follow one another nicely until my body felt like it was happy. Adjusted. Calm.

The funny thing is, this all followed five straight days of knuckle-cracking, horn-blowing, nail-biting, teeth-clenching, swearing-under-my-breath frustration.

YOU try finding a reasonably priced apartment in Tel Aviv. It was days of calls from the real estate agent saying, "Go look at this apartment right now or you will probably lose it." So several times, my mother and I would jump up, brush our teeth, throw on clothes and look at one hideous and overpriced broom closet apartment after another. One smelled so bad, I couldn't wait to get out of it (the shades-of-brown, chevron-striped vinyl tile might have had something to do with it, too).

We got a similar call this morning. Fortunately for our ever-thinning sanity, the apartment was perfect. And I signed a contract this afternoon.

When we got back to the hotel, Mom wanted a nap, and my body was screaming for some exercise, something to burn off the leftover nervous energy I had been carrying around like the world's largest sack of potatoes. We each cope in our own way.

Fast-forward to me, outside, breathing Mediterranean air, just doing whatever my body told me to do.

One of the things that we forget in our industrialized society, with the constant barrage of extra-loud advertisements on television, iPods, our cell phones acting as attractive electronic leashes and drive-through windows acting as the most convenient way to throw food down our gullets as we fight traffic on our way home, we couldn't hear our bodies even if we were trying to listen. We have entirely lost touch with what our body has to say. And believe me, it has plenty to say, and it really, really wants you to listen. It gives great advice. It can tell you what to eat, when to sleep and even what it likes to do.

In the calm of an Israeli evening, surrounded by no one, my body was quietly whispering to me that it wanted to practice First Longfist, that it wanted to run through seven karate forms, and then, finally, that it wanted the glorious full body yawn that is a yoga practice. It was better than the greatest morning stretch you ever had. It was probably akin to what a cat feels when it stretches: totally perfect.

Meow.

Suzanne Gannon is a yoga instructor in the Charleston area. Reach her at suzygannonyoga@yahoo.com.